Green heads will explode over new renewable process: CO2 to Coal

Move over wind farms. Step aside acres of solar panels. There’s a new renewable energy source coming down the pike, and it has the potential to put the others out of business. And, ironically, it’s the climate alarmists’ biggest demon. It’s carbon dioxide.

Carbon sequestration, as the process is called, removes CO2 from the atmosphere and turns it into a solid form, namely coal, in order to be able to store it safely back in the ground where it came from.

A research team led by RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, has discovered a new method of taking carbon dioxide in its gas form and converting it into solid coal. The discovery has the potential to completely change the way people regard the carbon dioxide that humans release into the atmosphere. The paper detailing how the feat was accomplished was published on February 26 in Nature Communications.

“While we can’t literally turn back time, turning carbon dioxide back into coal and burying it back in the ground is a bit like rewinding the emissions clock,” said Dr. Torben Daeneke, a research scientist at RMIT University.

A schematic illustration showing how liquid metal is used as a catalyst for converting carbon dioxide into solid coal. Credit: RMIT University

Methods of carbon sequestration already exist, but those methods are technically and economically challenging. Major oil companies and energy concerns such as Shell are currently spending a fortune on projects aimed at removing atmospheric CO2 from the air, but those processes involve turning CO2 into a liquid form and injecting it back into rock formations. The process is so expensive that even major companies can’t afford it without government subsidies.

While this is not the first time that scientists have been able to turn CO2 into coal, previous methods required extremely high temperatures and were not viable outside a laboratory setting. The new method can be accomplished at room temperature.

“To date, CO2 has only been converted into a solid at extremely high temperatures, making it industrially unviable,” Daeneke said.

But the researchers found a way around the extreme temperature problem. “By using liquid metals as a catalyst, we’ve shown it’s possible to turn the gas back into carbon at room temperature, in a process that’s efficient and scaleable,” Daeneke said.

The liquid metal catalyst was developed by the researchers with specific surface properties, making it extremely efficient at conducting electricity, while chemically activating the surface.

According to the press release: “The carbon dioxide is dissolved in a beaker with an electrolyte liquid and a small amount of the liquid metal, which is then charged with an electric current. The CO2 slowly converts into solid flakes of carbon, which are naturally detached from the liquid metal surface, allowing the continuous production of carbonaceous solid.”

And, yes, the process has the potential to yield a future energy source. The carbon produced may be able to be used as an electrode.

I love you Anthony, but this idea is nuts. It’s got to be 10% energy efficient on top of the 33%ish energy efficiency of the electricity from coal or nuclear on the front end, and again on the back end if you want to burn the produced coal again. That’s 1% efficient tops. And where is the lithium used as a catalyst going to come from in an industrial scale?

In addition to the electric current as a reducing force, the liquid metal (whatever that is) most certainly is undergoing a form change to increase its oxidation state, thereby supplying more electrons to reduce the CO2 to carbon and freeing the oxygen to oxidize the metal.
And note the key kinetics word in the above CO2 conversion description is “slowly.”

Maybe liquid metal electrolyte like a chromic acid solution? Chrome can supply a lot of electrons to the oxidation process, which is why it is loved by car afficonados to chrome-plate steel.

The article here doesn’t say much on the catalyst metal or metal electrolyte details, but I have no inclination chase that useless rabbit down the hole of reference searches.

Chemically, it has toxicity similar to other heavy metals such as Lead or Mercury. You want to avoid exposure if you can do so easily.

Even among radioactive materials it is inter-mediate to low since most isotopes are primarily alpha emitters, and most of the material produced in reactors is Pu-239, with a 24,100 year half life. Longer half life means it is a less strong source for longer. Co-60, for example, produces two hard gammas and has a half life of 5.27 years, so it’s blazing hot and highly damaging, but lasts a much shorter time.

It isn’t about whether or not they are educated, it is about political dogma driving science. As long as science research is dependent on government funding, and government funding is driving by the idiotic ideology of AGW, educated (or should that be credentialed) people will waste government money on useless research because, useless research is the only kind of research the government will fund.

The problem is the government funding of science. Government funded art results in junk art; government funded science (as long as it isn’t defense related) results in junk science.

Yes, most sensible chemists would wade through the BS surrounding the article and then ask “Why would anyone be interested in developing catalysts to enhance the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide to solid carbon species?” A new way to do something there is no sense in doing is a waste of time and money.

In what world would it make sense to have a grant to do this research? The closest situation I can imagine is one that has been discussed here once that I can recall. It is the potential situation on a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier where there is a large over-supply of effectively free electrical energy, but a shortage of jet fuel. The electrochemical reduction of CO2 to hydrocarbons for use as jet fuel, using carbon dioxide from the air or seawater, might then appear attractive.

Reading between the lines, I suspect that the authors were hoping to achieve reduction to useful liquid hydrocarbons but ended up with solid carbonaceous products instead. They then tried to positively spin the results along the lines of “Hey, we could then bury these useless products in the ground as if they were coal.” Very expensive lame carbon sequestration.

It’s all very silly, but much entertainment can be had trying to guess what researchers were originally hoping for in reports of a failed project. They got the grant, spent the money, had a party, and now have to tell a story with the less-than-stellar results.

I have long advocated that. Mine coal, burn it, release CO2 into the atmosphere. Grow trees, make paper, turn the paper into slurry and pack it at high pressure back into old coal mines much like “rammed earth”. The paper slurry, pound for pound, would have more carbon than the coal that came out of the mine and the best thing of all is, in an emergency, that packed carbon could be used again. Packing that paper in at high pressure would also reduce surface subsidence that often happens above old mines. It could be packed with hydraulic rams to nearly the density of the coal that came out. A few centuries sitting in that shaft under pressure from the rock above might also help transform it into something even more useful than just the compressed paper slurry. Might turn into coal again.

The difficult part of sequestering CO2 has always been extracting it economically from the factory flue or the wider atmosphere.
How many metals are liquid at room temperature?
It’s not coal they get, it’s carbon. If you want coal you can burn it needs to contain masses of hydrocarbon.
They have the process going in a beaker – scaling up and getting past the inefficiencies is probably impossible.
Whimsical tyro lab play!

Intermittent energy can be regularized, in presence of hydro power, with reasonable efficiency. I guess 60% is easy to reach, 70% might be near maximum. The internet gives as high number as 87%, but that is surely in jest.

Pumped hydro is the most efficient way to large scale power regularization, but is limited to places where hydro is available. Environmental organizations might work hard against this scheme though Denmark and Norway could possibly use this to reach local grid stability in conjunction with wind power use. Cheap solar, once it comes available, could also be used to pump water. Which is apparently never.

Pumped hydro is the fastest way to waste money. What you’re suggesting is a renewables generating capacity to produce electricity for consumers, a second renewables generating capacity to pump the water up to the reservoir, and a third (hydro) full generating capacity to produce electricity for consumers when the renewables are down.

Better and cheaper by far, to use just one fossil fuel generating capacity.

Who cares if it is efficient or not. It removes co2 from the atmosphere! Greenies will make you pay for it, so don’t worry about the cost. Every Greenie can have their store of hard coal at home, gloating at it: “Evil carbon, I have captured you!”

But WAIT! There’s more! If you buy one lump of coal today, we’ll give you a second lump for free! That’s two lumps of coal for the SAME low price! But if you call within the next 30 minutes, you’ll also receive this amazing set of steak knives! …
—

No, no, no, that’s my idea for a renewable building construction material based on sequestration of atmospheric CO2.

It has to have a scientific sounding name, such as lignonite. I’ll sell it by the millimeter and include a system for fastening pieces together. I shall call these fasteners, “nails.” But not like the nails at the end of AOC’s hands, these could actually hold things together. But the system will use one of the tools that she is so fond of.

Cut down mature trees, replant saplings. Backfill played-out coal mines with the felled trees (convert them to chips or sawdust, if need be). Then you have a ‘green’ coal mine using the same principles as the Drax power station.

Had this working at scale at least three years ago. Theory in 2007. Not new. CO2 is a non-polar solvent. You don’t need a metal to make this happen. There is one ingredient in the mix RMIT have not recognised. The metal attracts it.

The goal is to throw sand in the eyes of great unwashed masses. Preoccupying the coming generations with a pointless, feel good, “crusade” while those behind the power remove our access to autonomous transport, free movement and democracy.

It is easy to understand why co2 is demonised; it pays. Demonising the sun does not pay, so this is not done.

Don’t talk about cleaning up the environment, then you’d have to talk about pollution from production of EV batteries and such unpleasant, far-away stuff. We don’t want that! We just want to make our money while feeling good about it, and co2 makes this possible. Heavens, there are plenty of ways of making money that makes one feel bad, so let us embrace the money-demon co2 with hearts and purses.

Effectively, carbon capture is an attempt to terra form Earth .. which is already the most life-friendly planet in our solar system, and is likely among the very most life-friendly planets out of the trillions of planets yet undiscovered in the universe.

“Climate science” masquerading as climate engineering is literally human hubris taken to the infinite power.

“We know next to nothing about how any of the climate system actually works today, let alone how it worked over the hundreds of millions of years that Earth has had an atmosphere .. but hey, don’t let that stop us from reengineering everything. We call this the “Precautionary principle!”

Liquid metal catalyst? At room temperature? What, pray tell, is this miraculous substance? AFAIK, the only metal liquid at 20C is mercury, but it would be much too simple to actually give us poor peasants some idea of what the current snake oil actually is.

They use nanoparticles imprenated with metallic Cerium. The chemistry question is where does the released oxygen go in this contraption?

If the oxygen is released as gas above the liquid, this contraption could have usefulness as a regenerating CO2 scrubber on submarines and spaceships where electrical generation is not a huge problem during low demand periods like when the crew is sleeping. And Just toss the graphite carbon out with the trash.

As for metals that are liquid at 20 C: There is only one metallic element that is liquid at 20 degrees C, but there are also some alloys that don’t include it that are liquid at 20 degrees C. Although there is still the matter of a source of energy to reverse the process of coal combustion.

Lets see – we burn Carbon containing stuff to release the chemical energy in the form of heat which we then use to make electricity or make stuff go or other useful things which we can sell.
Now, the proposal is that we figure out a way to take the Oxygen out of the CO2 [we have to put BACK the energy we just took away and used for good stuff!] leaving us with the Carbon.
I was always taught that perpetual motion didn’t work in this Universe. Did I miss something?

With a bit more heat and pressure, CO2 could be turned into something even more inert than coal – – diamonds. Also, (my chemistry is a bit rusty) the only metal I know of that is liquid at room temperature is mercury (Hg). What could go wrong?

Neil , interesting that you mention diamond. Some years ago , whilst working on a research project involving carbon layers for electro-optical devices, one team member noticed a paper that claimed that
electrolysis of acetic acid (CH3.CO2H) yielded diamond films . You can get acetic acid from reacting CO2 with methyl sodium (Finar- Organic Chemistry) and then acidification . All things are possible in the wonderful world of organic chemistry , whether they are worth doing is another matter. BTW gallium melts at 30C .

Unless they have violated the Laws of Thermodynamics and made a Perpetual Motion Machine, the process will require energy. Energy to process and handle the input and output stream, energy to mine, smelt, and purify the metal catalyst, and energy to ‘un-mine’ the coal. What that means is that the net energy from fossil fuels could well end up being negative — which is maybe what they hope! In any even, I don’t see anything about cost estimates.

Now that I have skimmed the Nature article, I see that this is an electrochemical reduction process. That means, in addition to the other energy requirements I mentioned initially, there is a requirement of a continuous, low-voltage electricity source, which adds to the energy requirements! I doubt that this will ever see the commercial applications imagined, unless they can produce something of high unit value like carbon fullerenes.

Don’t tell anyone about the cost. All the warmistas need to know is that we have found a way to make coal a “renewable” energy resource. So there is no need to get rid of it. We can burn coal and then capture the CO2 and turn it back into coal again. Just don’t bring up the cost. Of course, they don’t seem to care about the cost when it comes to wind turbines and solar, so why would they care about the cost of renewable coal, as long as it doesn’t add CO2 to the atmosphere.

I guess the proposed process could only be potentially cost-effective when compared to other extreme policies to reduce or tax CO2 production. In that context it might have a plus (as it produces something on top of reduction).

You have got to hand it to the Aussies, they have a real sense of humour.
Maybe, they have plans to sell the coal production to China?
It would get round the Green lobby who are demanding Australia stops exporting mined coal.
You have laugh, the next thing they will tell us is Global Warming causes Global Cooling!

Brilliant idea. Now we can destroy all life on Earth by CO2 depletion. Is it right that I despise 97% of all scientists in this enlightened era?
Future generations will laugh at them…if we survive the coming Sciency Dark Ages. Those that defend scientists will say, “Oh but the vast majority of scientists were wonderful caring people.” But that wont be true, will it?
What is need is a great big sciency cull.

Easy peasy. From the Smart Meters. These new meters filter out the electrons from non-renewable sources in homes that have paid extra for renewable energy. From time to time the CO2-to-coal folks will make the rounds and dump the filters into electron buckets. Electrons aren’t very big so a bucket can hold quite a few Smart Meters’ dumpings. I absolutely will NOT put a \s on this post.

Since 1980, scientists have been using satellites to monitor the number of sandwiches in the Arctic region.

Why do scientists monitor the number of sandwiches in the Arctic region, you might ask? The answer is quite simple. What do you think polar bears eat, when they can’t hunt seals, because there is no sea ice.

The number of sandwiches grows and decays with the seasons. There are more sandwiches in winter/spring (while the polar bears are eating seals). And there are fewer sandwiches in summer/fall (when seals are not available).

But scientists are concerned, because over the decades, the number of sandwiches is following a decreasing trend.

The number of sandwiches is obviously getting smaller. Not every year, of course. It does so in fits and starts. But the long term pattern (the trend), is clear. Deny it, and you are a sandwich denier.

A bitter argument has broken out, between the 2 scientists who have been monitoring sandwich numbers.

Dr Anne Alarmist, insists that sandwich numbers are falling rapidly, and may fall to zero within 10 to 20 years.

But her rival, Dr A Skeptic, claims that Dr Anne Alarmist is talking “poppycock”. Dr A Skeptic agrees that there is a decreasing trend, but claims that sandwiches will continue to be available, for at least 100 to 200 years.

Each scientist has plotted a graph of sandwich numbers from 1980 to 2018.

Coal and other fossils fuels are the only true forms of renewable energy in any case. You dig them up, burn them and then they get reabsorbed into the earth and converted back to fossil fuels again. Discarded solar panels and wind turbines will always remain as useless trash.

Coal is mostly graphite. The other chemicals contained in it are not really necessary for burning it as fuel. Pure graphite would be much more desirable, so that is not the problem here. The problem is that the process of splitting CO2 into O2 and C requires more energy than you originally gained from burning the coal in the first place, so utterly pointless.

The problem with the process isn’t that you get elementary carbon instead of the mix of chemicals that is natural coal, but that you have to put in more energy than you originally retrieved from burning a fossil fuel. That was my point.

Your quibbling over the naming of different types of carbon misses the point. In my chemistry class at school I learnt that there are two main types of carbon, and that the most prevalent one is graphite, including the one found in coal. Wikipedia doesn’t seem unanimous in this, there are some pages that agree with me and some that don’t. I have no axe to grind about naming conventions anyway because I wanted to talk about something else.

Note that graphite is not a sedimentary mineral, but is formed in metamorphic rocks with high temperatures and pressures. It will burn, but like diamond, only with difficulty, at high temperatures and preferably with excess oxygen.

Burn C to make CO2, get energy out. That means C has a higher energy potential than CO2. To convert CO2 back to C you MUST input (more than) the same energy you got out. The team at RMIT are either fools or shysters.

Or how? As in how many cubic meters of air need to be passed over the catalyst to get a cubic meter of coal? If you want, for whatever reason, to reduce co2 by 10%, won’t you need to process and remove all of the co2 from 10% of the atmosphere. That’s a lot of air to move over the catalyst, and a lot of time to do It!

Assuming they can get this even remotely efficient, then why the hell would you bury it?
It just represents a viable way of converting excess solar power that can’t be used sensibly during the day to stored energy.
It is entirely renewable and does not add CO2 to the atmosphere while allowing it to be used in the bulk of the existing electricity generators. It’s a carbon battery, which unlike fossil fuels, is able to be charged electrically rather than by millions of years of geology.

If any government feels the need to put carbon back in to the ground, because of society’s sin of using oil, gas or coal, why don’t they just bury trees in abandoned mines or something like that. Oh wait, too practical.

In the same thought process: why ship wood from the USA to the UK to burn it there (shipped with oil burning ships, for heaven’s sake) instead of burying the trees in the USA and dig for coal or frack for gas in the UK. Not that I want them to do it, but THEY want to compensate for emissions. If you really want to, it can be done very easily.

That is still stupid, as it assumes that removing CO2 from the air is a good idea. But at least it gives a reasonably accurate description of what they did. And there is none of the stupid suggestion that this is an energy source.

They claim that the as-produced solid carbonaceous materials could be utilised for the fabrication of high-performance capacitor electrodes. But give no information as to why it would be good for this application.

Otherwise it is simply a method of expending electricity to damage life on earth.

However, the only reason this paper is published in Nature is because the authors link their findings to CO2 sequestration. It is interesting but hardly useful. If you want to make elemental carbon out of. CO2, just react cheap magnesium metal and dry ice. No need to use expensive cerium nanoparticles.

This is another ‘perpetuum mobile’, it will never be practical or economic, but the science is not always concerned with practical or economic, it is concerned with ideas, theoretical possibilities and discoveries; educated as a scientist I therefore salute their efforts.
It is up to engineers to apply scientific discoveries and make them practical and economic.
Trained an engineer too, my verdict is ‘the idea is the absolute bonkers’ .

The reversion to coal could happen near to a green energy source, a Utopia of wind and solar tended by our Green chums. We poor folk could slave away in the real world chained to our hum drum existence by our craving for cheap plentiful electricity. This is strangely reminiscent of the Golgafrinchams ploy to rid themselves of the useless third of their population. It could work.

BTW, doesn’t simply planting a tree accomplish the exact same thing? Shouldn’t the Big Oil Companies simply be buying up large tracks of land and planting fast-growing bamboo forests, cutting them down and burying them or making homes out of them? Why is everyone making this “problem” so complicated? Big Oil can plant forests and give away the wood to sequester the CO2 in new homes…and save an absolute fortune in the process.

I have an even better, more reliable, and considerably less expensive way to reduce CO2 emissions.
1 – Persuade every Greenbeaner and Warmunista you can find to buy and wear a rebreather set up 24/7/365, and no time off for good behavior. You can do this by informing them that when they exhale, they personally add 2.75 pounds of CO2 to the atmosphere, and they are very, very guilty of contributing to The Problem on a personal basis. But they have to pay for the rebreathers themselves.

2 – Give all the Greenbeaners, Warmunistas, Algorebullians their own spot on the planet, with all the wind and solar equipment they want. Has to be an island with no means of escape. (Penguin colonies may object, but they can be termed ‘endangered species – do NOT touch’.) They have to pay for and/or grow their own food and other such things themselves. And no leaving The Island for a minimum of 10 years.

Turning Carbon Di-Oxide into coal seems like a dumb idea. We already have a way of doing that, its a bit slower and it involves trees but while we’re waiting we get to enjoy the trees. The genius of this idea is the potential to go the other way electrolytically . The carbon oxygen bond has a lot of energy but we have only been able to get at that energy by burning it. No one has been able to make a room temperature carbon fuel cell. This may be a step in that direction.

Turning CO2 into a solid to burn? We use CO2 to put fires out. Remove the Oxygen and you have a solid block of Carbon. Use the solid block of Carbon to make Carbon fiber. Harness the Oxygen for a controlled explosions. Can I get my government grant money with this idea?

Why would you want to do this in the first place?
More CO2 in the atmosphere at current levels is BENEFICIAL.
You have to drink the “CO2 causes Global Climate Change” cool-aid before this makes any sense.

In principle any combustion product can be changed back into the fuel that produced it, only the energy budget of doing so is unlikely to be in your favour.

The way around that is to create an abundant source of cheap energy. Thorium or fusion are the obvious candidates there. With such an energy source it also becomes possible to synthesize cleaner burning liquid fuels with lower pollution potential, for example alcohols. Existing IC engines could be modified to run on such fuels at low cost, compared to the replacement of the entire vehicle fleet with battery cars. Diesels might not even need any mods. Thus you solve the city pollution problem (if it is really a problem) as well.

There are roughly ten million tons of carbon in the atmosphere (( 12478143744000 square inches of earth surface) x (14lbs/sq in) x (400 co2 molecules/million atmosphere molecules) x (12g/mole C/44g/mole co2 )).
No, I didn’t confirm the surface area of the earth in sq in (I got it of the interweb). Yes this is a Q and D calculation. Estimated US coal reserves are 475billion tons.

You lost a bit in translation. The atmosphere contains 5×10^18 kg of air of which 0.04% is carbondioxide hence of which roughly 1 quarter is carbon, hence a fraction 0.00011. That makes about 5.5×10^14 kg of carbon, 5.5×10^11 metric tons. That is 550.000 million tons, not 10 million.

This in an old process to turn CO2 to carbon. Burn magnesium in CO2. There might be room for improvement in total energy efficiency, but who cares, when you can save the world. 😉 https://youtu.be/2oQ_9nFe9HU

It’s being shrubbed from air by raindrops falling through. That’s why pure rainwater is slightly acidic. That one costs nothing. In industrial aplications where carbondioxide has to be removed it can be done by absorption in pure Calcium Oxide, quick lime, then to form calcium carbonate. Unfortunately the calcium oxide does not occur naturally, except in hot vulcanic ejecta, as it binds water in no time, so it has to be made from calcite by heating it, which releases, eh, carbondioxide and cost a lot of energy.

Burning coal producing carbon dioxide and reversing the process by using some mysterious molten metal catalyst to reverse the process to produce coal seems like a unaffordable pipedream which most likely will be embraced by climate alarmists.

To turn CO2 back into coal requires, at a minimum, adding the Gibbs free energy difference between CO2 and carbon. This is also the maximum availability that one frees when coal (more appropriately carbon) is burnt to CO2. One is simply running around in a shallow spiral here as there are other losses (irreversibilities) involved.

Why the other CO2 sequestration schemes make marginally more sense than this one is that at a minimum they require only the energy needed to unmix the CO2 from the rest of the exhaust gases, and then compress it sufficient to force it into an underground reservoir.

None of these schemes make much sense in reality because all we are doing is burning more coal in order to bury availability. Recall the article from a few weeks ago about making hydrogen gas from methane? That process would end up with enormous amounts of carbon as a by product, which I hope they would haul in trains back out to Wyoming to bury in reclaiming of coal mines. At some future when sanity returns, we could reopen those mines for pure carbon.

Does it take more energy to create the coal than is stored in the coal? It becomes a political question, do we spend resources on removing CO2 from the atmosphere. If we spend resources on removing CO2 from the atmosphere the question becomes is that necessary? If it is necessary, can this process economically remove enough CO2 to make a difference.

Basic thermodynamics says energy is lost in each cycle. IMAO CO2 sequestration is not necessary. That no human artificial process could remove enough CO2 to make any noticeable changes to atmospheric CO2 levels.

Therefore while interesting in a way, just another method of fleecing taxpayers in order to save the planet.

Isn’t this about the 89th post on WUWT claiming that CO2 can be converted to fuel? Of course it can, but it takes more energy to do this than can be recovered. Not cost-efficient, ever, no way, no how.

Please stop, makes your site look foolish. CO2 is what is produced by combustion/oxidation of carbon. Other products of oxidation are known as ashes, rust, water, sand, clinkers, etc… Are any of these fuel? Why, no they are NOT!!!

Sounds like a great way to drive up the cost of electricity at the expense of the poorest consumers. The whole point of Carbon Taxes is to make human beings pay for the air they breathe and then give the money to bankers.

There would be an irony indeed but it is not what the writer thinks. The irony would be that everything we know about endothermic and exothermic reactions, everything we know about thermodynamics and what we thought was the impossibility of making energy out of nothing, all that would turned out to be wrong, utterly wrong. We’ve been had for centuries.

Anthony publishes a story about a new source of energy – that has a negative COP. Yet refuses to publish anything on LENR You can now buy heat from Leonardo Corp’s E-Cat SK now, with delivery in weeks.

A NEW SOURCE OF CLEAN, CHEAP ENERGY IS NOW AVAILABLE
By Adrian Ashfield

Interest in LENR (Low Energy Nuclear Reactions aka Cold Fusion) was started by Fleischmann and Pons in 1989. Early efforts to replicate their results failed, getting the subject a bad reputation. Although it was later replicated a hundred times, the damage had been done. See https://lenr-canr.org/ for hundreds of scientific papers proving LENR is real.

Dr. Rossi and his E-Cats
Andrea Rossi started experimenting in LENR using nickel and hydrogen in 1996. Meeting with some success, he teamed with Dr. Focardi in Italy. Dr. Rossi developed a number of different reactors that were shown publicly. These prototypes were hard to control and took hours to start up.

The breakthrough came with the fourth generation E-Cat QX (Energy Catalyzer), which I described in the Delco Times at the end of 2017. This tiny device, the size of your little finger, produced 5 kW of heat and started up immediately, using a plasma for the first time. Those interested in the details should read technical reporter Mats Lewan’s excellent book “An Impossible Invention.”

This past year Dr. Rossi and his team have worked hard to develop three industrial versions called E-Cat SK5, SK20 & SK100. The SK5 and SK20 were developed as industrial versions, while the SK100 (100 kW) is still in R & D. Sometime in 2019 he settled on the SK20 as his first production reactor and has built a factory to mass produce them.

What is LENR?
LENR is a nuclear reaction of a different kind than fission or fusion. It has a very high energy density well above any chemical reaction, doesn’t use radioactive materials nor produce ionizing radiation. The core temperature of the SK is around 8,000 degC . The heat is transferred by electromagnetic waves, with a frequency above ultra-violet light, mainly in the range of 300 to 350 nanometers. It uses common elements like nickel, hydrogen and lithium as fuel. Depending on the heat exchanger, it can provide heat up to 550 degC. It only requires refueling with a few grams of material once a year.

Live demonstration by video on Jan31, 2019
Dr. Rossi unveiled the SK20 reactor as a sealed blue box that was heating a plant of around 3,000 square feet. That had been in operation since Nov 19. The demo showed the SK20 working and was followed by some two hours of questions and answers. Having had throat surgery recently, his voice was a little hard to understand at times.

All the main parameters were given. The size of the SK20 reactor itself is only 4” in diameter by 4” long. The output was 21.9 kW of heat. The control panel used 380 W, most of which was recovered. The COP (coefficient of performance) was 57. This calculated value was confirmed by looking at the energy required to heat the building.

Rossi’s business strategy is to sell metered heat at 80% of the cost of any other fuel. That way the customer does not have to pay for the reactor and Leonardo can better protect their intellectual property. Fraud is very unlikely as the customer would know how much heat he is receiving.

Conclusions
The SK20 is available now from info@LeonardoCorp1996.com, with a delivery time of a few weeks, depending on the application. Dr. Rossi thinks his initial customers will be in agriculture. He is also working on a LENR powered turbine with a company in Japan that should provide the best way to get electricity.
If things work out as expected, LENR may also power things like ships and trains. Automobiles will take at least a decade to develop. But LENR should replace most fossil fuels in two decades and end the concern of global warming.
This may well be the start of a new era of plentiful clean energy.

No it isn’t. He had control problems with previous models.
This is the first commercial version that is actually working.
one that you can rent for heat. Unlike previous models this has been tested for a year.

Two years from now Rossi will be installing 120MW for an early client, and there will not be any 42 MW units in operation. That’s my prediction. I check this field out at least annually. Do keep us informed.

As the output of the SK reactor can be as high as 500C it should be possible to run a steam turbine.
The better solution is a LENR turbine. Rossi is working with a Japanese company to make one, but it is years away.

One problem with your story is where you said “Early efforts to replicate their results failed”–the group commissioned to investigate the claims of Pons and Fleischmann had a vested interest in scuttling it because a $Billion in research money was being sought for the tokamak fusion process at about the same time! Talk about industrial espionage!! Had LENR been shown to have promise, a $Billion would have been denied some very entrenched research groups that decided to simply lie to preserve their funding!!

The tests were run by MIT and Caltec hot fusion scientists.
It is now understood that they failed to load the Palladium with sufficient Deuterium in their haste.
DOE’s scientists lied to Congress about ITER, claiming a COP of 10 when in fact it is only 1.3 (ref Krivit) This is not enough for commercial use.

Adrian Asjfield: The tests were run by MIT and Caltec hot fusion scientists.

No one has ever demonstrated that one of these devices can produce more power than is consumed at startup (beyond measurement error), or that one has produced gamma radiation above natural background radiation longer than can be expected by chance.

I’m afraid this is nonsense. A device of 4″ by 4″ diameter has a surfacecarea of at most 500 cm square. For it to produce 22kW on a continues basis (how long exactly?) Will run at a temperature of a few hundred degrees. In fact, it may be so hot that it melts. You have been taken in and believe in a fairy tale.

You should try to understand the design before commenting.
The SK is a plasma operating at ~10,000C mainly with a radiation at 350 nanometers, in a transparent tube. The energy is collected by the heat exchanger.

This whole concept makes AOC’s Green New Deal look like an Einstein treatise by comparison! Planning for carbon sequestration is a monumental blunder unless the perpetrator’s goal is to impose genocide on a global scale! How about we just let the Earth green up from more available carbon?? Isn’t that the goal of classical environmentalism–the expansion and improved vitality of ecosystems?! Believe me, that will never happen if carbon is pulled out of the atmosphere and buried, never to be seen again!!

Ok, I’ve come to my senses! I now recognize this as a great government-run jobs-creating program implemented primarilyto keep coal miners employed, among others! The synthetic coal resulting from this process will be burried in appropriate locations on BLM land where mining companies can compete for mining leases and the synthetic coal can be mined again, shipped to coal-fired power plants again, after which the CO2 released to the atmosphere can be harvested again, fabricated into synthetic coal again, and deposited yet again for eventual mining!!! Every step in this perpetual cycle will employ thousands of workers, many ancillary businesses and industries, resulting in expanding taxes, and voters who support politicians that favor this Coal New Deal in perpetuity! Why, this is making much more sense than banning airplanes, eliminating farting cows, and stopping fossil fuel production, along with reconstructing all buildings in our country! Wouldn’t you agree?

I get it . An early April fools joke .
It does underscore the relationship between coal and CO2 . Yes lets eliminate natures plant food so the climate doesn’t change .
I propose that before people like AOC spout off about spending $trillions of dollars the
USA does not have these people should have to take and pass a Grade 9 science test .
OK for M Waters , native Indian impersonator Warren and most of the MSM Grade 3 will do .
Are these politicians all smashed ? Some committee is going to pretend to set the earths temperature ?

Wouldn’t it be helpful if 30,000 scientists were survey’d and asked to
rank various factors greater to least that determine the earths climate .
So for example :
The sun
The clouds
Ocean currents
Volcano activity
Cow farts

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